“Except for the men we marry, of course,” Luella put in. “They’ll be happy.”
“Very happy,” Jean said.
Plummer nodded and said, “I expect so. Maybe folks think that this’ll be the start of somethin’, though. That more ladies like you will be comin’ out here and makin’ the town a better place.”
Bo said, “You mean you think Cyrus Keegan will be getting some repeat business?”
“Could be,” Plummer said as he lifted a hand and rubbed his beard-stubbled chin. “I reckon it depends on how ever’thing works out over the next few days.”
By the time Bo and Plummer reached the eastern end of Main Street, the citizens of Silverhill definitely were aware of who was riding in the wagon right behind them. A crowd of whooping, cheering men surged toward them. Whistles and catcalls filled the air. The grinning bearded faces of miners, freighters, and bullwhackers beamed up at them. Men waved their hats in the air in sheer exuberance. The racket was enough to wake the dead.
Then it grew even louder and more jarring with the abrupt addition of the discordant strains of a brass band launching into a raucous melody. Bo looked along the street and saw the roughly clad musicians gathered on the boardwalk in front of a large building right in the center of town. It was one of the structures with an actual second floor, fronted with a balcony, and nailed to the railing of that balcony was an elaborately painted sign that ran almost the entire block.
DYSON’S SILVER KING PALACE – THEATER AND SALOON – FINEST WHISKEY AND COLDEST BEER IN THE TERRITORY!
Well, that settled the question of which building belonged to Forbes Dyson, Bo thought.
The men in the street clustered around the wagon and pressed in so close, it was difficult for Scratch to guide the team along without anyone getting trampled. At the same time, the men on the side where Rose was sitting reached up toward her. They didn’t look like they wanted to pull her down from the wagon, but they definitely wanted to touch her, as if to make sure she was real. Seeing so many grimy hands groping in her direction made Rose’s eyes widen with fear.
“Miss Rose, you better get inside the wagon!” Scratch told her as he sawed at the reins and struggled to keep the suddenly skittish team under control.
Rose stood up and swung a leg over the seat to clamber into the back. That flash of stockinged calf was enough to set off even more howling and whistling and grabbing at the empty air where she had just been.
“Bo!” Scratch called. “Can you clear a path?”
Bo thought a few gunshots blasted into the air might make the crowd scatter, but that might also finish the job of spooking the horses. Not wanting a runaway, Bo left his Colt holstered and pulled his mount back and forth, causing men to jump out of the way if they didn’t want to get knocked down and maybe trampled.
Rance Plummer did likewise and added a bellowed order to get out of the way.
“Rattle your hocks, you rannies!” he roared at the men in the street. “Clear out! Clear out, there!”
Meanwhile, the brass band continued its off-key blaring. The musicians seemed to be trying to make up for with enthusiasm whatever they lacked in talent.
Bo saw that something was stretched from the front of the Silver King to a building across the street and tied in place with ropes. Someone pulled another rope, loosening all the fastenings, and a banner emblazoned with red, white, and blue bunting unfurled and hung flapping about fifteen feet above the street. In bright red paint on the banner were the words WELCOME TO SILVERHILL!
From behind the seat, Cecilia raised her voice to be heard over the hubbub and said to Scratch, “My goodness, they certainly go all out to welcome visitors here, don’t they?”
“I reckon they don’t make such a fuss over ever’-body, ma’am,” Scratch said over his shoulder. “They’ve done all this for you ladies!”
Bo had never expected such a commotion to greet their arrival. He wasn’t sure where they should go or what they should do.
Plummer must have seen the look on Bo’s face, because he leaned over in his saddle and shouted over the racket, “All this was Forbes Dyson’s idea! He sort of runs things around here, so maybe you should talk to him first!”
At least that was a place to start, Bo decided. He nodded and guided his horse carefully through the crowd toward the big, impressive-looking saloon.
If Dyson was the one who had come up with the idea for this celebratory welcome, he ought to be out in front to greet the newcomers. Bo searched the boardwalk on both sides of the brass band and spotted a man in an expensive suit standing there with his thumbs hooked in the pockets of a fancy vest. A long black cheroot was clenched between the man’s teeth and stuck out from his lips at a jaunty angle. He was sleekly handsome, with a mustache and silver-streaked dark hair.
Bo’s instincts told him he was looking at Forbes Dyson.
He managed to reach one of the hitch rails in front of the saloon, but there were too many men pressed in around his horse for him to dismount. Plummer forced his way alongside, and Scratch brought the team to a stop a few feet away.
The man Bo guessed was Forbes Dyson stepped forward, took the cigar out of his mouth, and held up both hands, as if calling for quiet.
That was what he got, as the band stopped playing in mid-note and the men in the crowd fell silent with surprising quickness. The few who continued whooping and hollering shut up in a hurry when they were on the receiving end of hard stares from several men who stepped up to the boardwalk railing on either side of Dyson.
Bo’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked at those men. Lean and rangy, they had a wolfish quality about them. The grips of the revolvers on their hips looked well used. Bo had seen enough hired-gun wolves in his life to recognize the breed when he laid eyes on it.
As the owner of a saloon in a boomtown, though, Dyson probably needed such men just to keep the peace in his place, and Bo couldn’t find fault with that.
As Dyson stood there with his hands still raised, the attention of the men in the street turned to him from the wagon. He seemed to enjoy having all eyes on him and allowed the moment to stretch out before finally raising his voice and saying, “Ladies, welcome to Silverhill! I take it you are the beautiful prospective brides sent to us by the Keegan Matrimonial Agency?”
Bo took it upon himself to answer.
“My friend and I work for Cyrus Keegan,” he said. “These ladies are here to meet the men they’ve agreed to marry. If those men would step up . . .”
Whoops and howls erupted from the crowd again. Frowning, Bo glanced over at Rance Plummer and saw that the ranch foreman was grinning slyly. In that moment, Bo wished he had made a stronger effort to get Plummer to spill everything he knew about what was waiting for them in Silverhill . . . because in his gut, Bo knew something was wrong in this boomtown.
Dyson replaced the cigar in his mouth, puffed on it a couple of times, and blew out a cloud of smoke. Then he motioned for the crowd to be quiet again. When they were, he said, “That’s going to be a little difficult, my friend.”
Bo said tightly, “I don’t see what’s so hard about the men who plan to marry these women stepping up and identifying themselves.”
“Well, the problem is, you see . . .” Dyson chuckled and waved the hand holding the cigar to indicate the entire large crowd of men in the street. “All these fine fellows are the prospective bridegrooms!”
CHAPTER 23
For a moment, Bo couldn’t understand what the man was getting at. He stared at Forbes Dyson in confusion.
Scratch was equally puzzled, and he couldn’t stop himself from exclaiming, “What the hell?”
Cecilia leaned forward, put a hand on Scratch’s shoulder, and said, “What in the world is he talking about?”
Bo wanted an answer to that question, too. He said, “I reckon you’d better explain yourself, mister.”
“Of course,” Dyson said smoothly. “It’s quite simple, really. Even though the ladies corresponded with five gent
lemen from here in Silverhill and accepted their proposals of wedlock, it doesn’t necessarily follow that those are actually the five men who will marry them.”
“It most certainly does!” Cecilia said. “Where is Jasper Hobson? If he’s here, I demand to see him.”
Dyson chuckled. He put the cigar back in his mouth, clenched his teeth on it, and said around it as he beckoned to someone in the crowd, “Jasper, come on up here.”
Scratch said to Cecilia, “This is the fella you’re supposed to marry?”
“That’s right.” She didn’t sound excited now at the prospect of meeting her intended bridegroom.
Apprehensive was more like it, Bo thought.
That apprehension was warranted. The crowd parted to let a man through. He stepped up onto the boardwalk, taking the hand that one of the hardfaced gunmen stuck out to him to help.
Jasper Hobson was short, bowlegged, and sported a ragged gray beard. His clothes were patched where they weren’t threadbare. He wore a battered old hat with a pushed-up brim. One of his whiskery cheeks bulged with a chaw of tobacco.
“I thought you were marryin’ a fella who owns a successful minin’ claim,” Scratch said to Cecilia.
“I am. I mean, I thought I was, too. But that man looks like . . . like . . .”
“An old desert rat who ain’t got two dimes to rub together,” Scratch said, finishing for her. “As red as his nose is, though, I reckon he got a snootful of whiskey somehow.”
Jasper Hobson fumbled his hat off, revealing a fringe of lank gray hair around a mostly bald head, and slurred, “It’s . . . it’s mighty fine t’ meet you, Miss . . . Miss Ceci . . . Cecilia. You’re a—” He had to stop to hiccup, then continued, “You’re a whole heap prettier’n I expected!”
“This can’t be true,” Cecilia said as her eyes widened in horror. “This can’t possibly be Jasper Hobson. The man who wrote those letters to me was charming and urbane!”
From the way Forbes Dyson hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets again and practically preened, Bo suddenly had a pretty good idea who had written the letters to Cecilia and signed Jasper Hobson’s name. He had a glimmering of what was going on here, although he didn’t know the details yet.
“Mr. Dyson, I think you’ve got some explaining to do,” Bo said. “The other men these ladies were expecting to meet, are they all like this Hobson hombre?”
“Well, not exactly,” Dyson said. “Two of them are prospectors like Jasper, one is the blacksmith’s assistant, and the other fellow clerks in Higginbotham’s Store. I can bring them all up here if you’d like. You see, we had a lottery—”
“A lottery!” Cecilia cried. “You mean you gambled to see who was going to marry us?”
Dyson waved a hand and said, “Not at all, not at all. You misunderstand me. It was never intended that these men would marry you. Oh, they’ll have their chance, like everyone else, but just because we used their names, they won’t be given any unfair advantage.”
“You wrote those letters, didn’t you?” Bo asked.
Dyson looked very satisfied with himself again.
“I thought I did a commendable job of varying the style and vocabulary and attitudes in each one, so that the ladies would believe they were corresponding with five different men. I thought that with them being friends and coming from the same town, they might well pass the letters around, so I put some real effort into it.”
“Into tricking us, you mean!” Rose said. She glared at Dyson. “I ought to—”
“Ladies, ladies.” Dyson held up both hands again, obviously a favorite gesture of his. “For any offense I’ve given, I sincerely apologize. You have to understand the situation here in Silverhill, though.” He swept a hand toward the crowd. “These men need wives!”
Cheers and whistles erupted again.
Dyson allowed the commotion to go on for a minute or so, then motioned for quiet and went on. “But in the interests of fairness, it seemed that everyone should have a chance at wedded bliss! So we came up with the idea of bringing you ladies to Silverhill and staging a . . . tournament, let’s call it . . . to determine who will have the privilege of marrying you.”
Cecilia stared at him and said coldly, “That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Not at all. Think of, say, the Trojan War. All the blood spilled, all the men who died, simply to determine who was going to be the husband of one woman. Helen of Troy, the face that launched a thousand ships, as the saying goes. But here, no real battles will be fought. No one will die. We’ll just hold a series of contests, and the winners will claim the hands of you ladies in marriage.”
“But what if we don’t want to marry whoever wins?” Jean practically wailed.
“Don’t worry,” Dyson told her. “We’ll come to an arrangement that’s satisfactory to all the parties involved.”
Bo shook his head and said, “Mister, this is loco. It’s not what these ladies agreed to before they ever came out here. It’s not right, and you’re not going to do it.”
Angry shouts burst out from the men crowded around the wagon and the horses. Bo’s first impulse was to move his hand closer to the butt of his gun, but he knew that if he did that, the displeasure the men were expressing now might turn into a riot. A crowd could become a mob in the blink of an eye.
“Hear me out,” Dyson said, raising his voice over the tumultuous racket. “While it’s true there was a certain amount of... not being completely accurate—”
“Just call it lyin’ and be done with it,” Scratch snapped.
Dyson fixed him with a cold stare and said, “Not many men have ever called me a liar and gotten away with it, friend. But I’m going to overlook it since this is an unusual situation.”
He turned back to Bo and continued, “Every sentiment expressed in those letters was genuine. I just helped these men put what they felt into words. Every man here”—again, he waved at the crowd—“wants a chance to show one of these ladies that he can be the sort of husband she came out here seeking. They were willing to put their hard-earned money on the line to earn that chance.”
“You’re saying they all went in together to pay Cyrus Keegan’s fee and cover the expenses of the ladies coming out here?” Bo asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Everyone chipped in, and as I mentioned before, we held a lottery to see whose names would be used on the letters, just to make everything fair and square. I volunteered to draft those letters. You see . . .” Dyson smiled ingratiatingly at the young women in the wagon. “You ladies should be honored that an entire community came together to bring you out here.”
Cecilia said, “I don’t consider having a bunch of men gambling for me to be that much of an honor.”
“Neither do I,” Jean said with a sniff. “It’s very undignified.”
“I don’t know,” Luella said. “It’s kind of... romantic. . . isn’t it? I mean, in olden times, knights in shining armor used to have tournaments to try to win the favor of fair maidens.”
Rose said, “You read too many books. But, on the other hand, now that I think about it, it is kind of impressive that these fellows would go to so much trouble just to get us out here.”
“And he did say it would be like a tournament,” Beth added.
“Exactly!” Dyson said with a big grin. “I’m glad to see that you ladies understand and are getting into the spirit of the thing.”
“Nobody said anything about getting into the spirit of the thing,” Bo snapped. “Our job is to look out for the safety of these ladies—”
Dyson spread his arms wide and said, “What could possibly happen to them? They’re surrounded by several hundred devoted guardians, men who would lay down their lives to protect them.”
Bo frowned over at Rance Plummer and asked, “You knew about this, didn’t you?”
Plummer shrugged. “The boys heard about the fandango and raised such a fuss about wantin’ to come here for it, old man Jecks, who owns the SJ, finally agr
eed. They drew lots to see who’d stay and look after the spread, and the rest of ’em got to come here to Silverhill.”
“We’re lookin’ to win us some wives,” one of the cowboys said.
“Not if we’ve got anything to say about it!” responded a bearded hombre in the rough garb of a pick-and-shovel man. “The miners are gonna win them gals!”
A burly man in grimy buckskins, with a beard nearly down to his waist, yelled, “No miner could ever stand up to a bullwhacker in a fair contest!”
Angry shouts rose from all through the crowd. The rivalry between the factions might have turned into an out-and-out street brawl if Forbes Dyson hadn’t shouted, “You men settle down! Do you want these fine ladies to think that you’re all savage animals?”
That quieted the commotion. The hotly voiced challenges died away.
In the silence that fell, Cecilia said flatly, “We’re not going along with this. As Mr. Creel said, it’s not what we agreed to, and you can’t hold us to the bargain.”
“Nobody’s going to force you to do anything, Miss . . . ?”
Cecilia hesitated before answering, “Spaulding. Cecilia Spaulding.”
“All these men are asking for is a chance, Miss Spaulding. Let them show you how excited they are that you’re here. Let them demonstrate that they’re willing to risk not only money but also life and limb in order to win you over. This is the biggest thing to ever hit this part of the country! We’re going to have a shooting competition, a horse race, a poker tournament, a test of strength, and even bare-knuckles boxing bouts to determine the winners. Wait and see. There’s never been anything like this in New Mexico Territory!” Dyson laughed. “I’m not sure there’s ever been anything like it in the entire country!”
He was probably right about that, Bo thought. No matter what Luella had said about those tournaments with knights in olden times, nobody had ever come up with an idea quite this crazy before. The more Bo mulled it over, the more confident he was about that.
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